Cobble Hill

Part-time Brooklynite to release ‘Surrendering Oz’ — ‘Oz’ with a feminist twist

Brooklyn BookBeat

November 6, 2014 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Author Bonnie Friedman’s newest work will be featured at a book release event at BookCourt on Nov. 10. Photo by Claire Holt, courtesy of Bonnie Friedman
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Part-time Brooklynite Bonnie Friedman will release her newest work, “Surrendering Oz: A Life in Essays,” on Nov. 10 at BookCourt at 7 p.m. with a reading, interactive audience Q&A and book signing event.  

“Surrendering Oz” (Etruscan Press) focuses on a Jewish girl from the Bronx who works as a proofreader for “The Guinness Book of World Records” as she is “emotionally awakened.”

The book is described as an autobiography of sorts, as Friedman wrote the essays over several years, later realizing that each essay had connected into something bigger.  

“[The essays] concern how one learns to think for oneself; how one gains possession over one’s own life,” Friedman said, in an article published in Lilith.  “Once I saw that, I believed I might have a book.”

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Friedman’s collection of essays has also been coined as being a feminist interpretation of “The Wizard of Oz,” hence the title, as young Friedman observes the contrasting versions of femininity she saw on TV versus in the world around her.  

Brooklyn-born critic and writer Phillip Lopate praised Friedman’s work, saying, “In these very personal essays, lit by a harsh honesty and graced by a supple, eloquent prose style, the author has dug deep and found her own truth, and in the process triumphantly reconciled with a flawed self.”

BookCourt is located at 163 Court St. in Cobble Hill.

 


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